divorce

When you hear sex education you likely assume it’s all about sex. However, there is more to sex education than sex alone. There are things like sexless marriages, virginity, menopause, fetishes and kinky stuff too.

Have you ever thought about what sex actually is?

Does sex have to be about penetration? What if you and a partner are into mutual masturbation, does that mean you have not had sex? If you say yes to that, does that mean lesbians have never had sex (unless you count being artificially penetrated – assuming they use such things)?

What about people who choose not to have sex, is there something wrong with them or is it just a choice? If there isn’t something wrong with that choice what does it say about people who have a lot of sex or think they are deprived if they haven’t had sex in a week? Are they oversexed?

I think sex is embarrassing. People don’t really want to talk about it, face to face. When you have sex you look pretty silly and sound worse. I’m amazed the human species has made it this far when I think about what sex actually is, especially in the past when consent wasn’t an issue.

So much about sex is all in your perspective. When you are intimate with someone you forget to be embarrassed. If you are someone who has sex frequently that seems normal to you. Someone else who has sex less often is normal too. It doesn’t mean they have less libido, less desire or are less attractive. They have a different perspective.

All this fuss about sex and then… menopause. What is the purpose of sex? I’ve thought about that. As a woman over 45, child-less and now waiting for menopause I sometimes feel angry about the whole sex thing. I think sex has let me down in every way that counts. I didn’t especially love sex when I was married, or before or since. I got married for the purpose of having companionship and children. I never found out if I were infertile, that didn’t become an issue because my husband changed his mind about children and being married. We’re divorced. Not because of sex.

Long ago, in the days of the Internet surfing highway, there was a purity test with over 1000 questions. I found a copy of it. Posted for your viewing (or take the test) pleasure.

THE UNISEX PURITY TEST

If you thought the millenial purity test was bad, well you ain’t see
nuttin’ yet!

This is the 1500 point Purity Test!

We felt that the 1000 point version lost a lot of the “fun” of the
earlier versions, so we re-wrote it, adding a few new sections, and
a shitload of questions. This test is guaranteed to be nosier that
your parents, more invasive than the census, and containing something
to offend everybody.

Also included is an answer form so that you can remember where in the
test you were, or show to a friend.

We were given the topic “Inspirational Women” but all I could think of were the women in my life, those I admire and those I love. We all inspire someone, somewhere. Why don’t we give ourselves more credit?

Why do we get inspired by other women? Is it really due to their achievements or is there more to it? Do we see ourselves in their struggle and do we envy their success as we compare ourselves to them? I do, but then I think there is really no reason I can’t be making more successes in my own life, doing the things that matter to me. What holds some of us back? Why do we choose to go shopping, see something on TV or just never start all these great ideas and plans we have? Is it learned helplessness or do we just have so little faith in ourselves? Really, there isn’t any reason we can’t all be inspirational women. Maybe we already are, to someone.

Those inspirational women you read or think about mostly wouldn’t think of themselves that way. If you could go back in time as ask Amelia Earhart, Nellie McClung, Helen Keller, Boadicca, and Nellie Bly what made them inspirational I bet they would wonder too. Women tend to question our own achievements and see them as less than they really are. We compare ourselves to other women and see how much more we could be doing and then everything we have done seems smaller and less important. We cheat ourselves. Men don’t do that. They think every least thing they do is great and should be made note of. We call them cocky. Why aren’t we more like that? You don’t need a cock to believe in yourself and your abilities. Trust yourself, when no one is there for you, you are.

I admire women who are part of my everyday life yet I don’t think any of them would feel they belong on a list of inspirational women to be admired. I find my Grandmother and her sisters inspiring: Violet Scherle, Alice McRoberts, and the others, all deceased now. I find women I have contacted and worked with on the web inspiring: Deanna, Jade Walker, Bev Walton-Porter, Debbie Ohi for instance. Think of the early women doctors, the old midwives and herbalists who fought battles to do with family, career and a woman’s place in our world. I admire my Mother for being a Mom with four kids and a less than pleasant husband. As I grow older I understand her life and things she must have felt.

I admire women writers like: Shirley Jackson, LM Montgomery, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Victoria Holt and Anne Stuart for their imagination and craft with words. I admire women pioneers like Susanna Moody and her sister Catherine Parr Traille. I admire women like Helen Keller and Kat at Sex Kitten who are fighting with health problems and winning. I admire my own sister, Sarah, for starting up her own business and keeping it going even though it’s very scary to have big debts, small children and an insecure income. I find Angela Comelli, a friend from high school inspiring cause she was beautiful (she literally turned heads as she walked down the street), very intelligent, witty and a lovely, kind person and she thought I was all those things too.

I think the women I find most inspiring are those who achieve their dreams while being single, working parents. Women who struggle to keep going after huge setbacks like a divorce, a death or whatever else comes along in life. I think we should all take some time to admire each other, for we have all faced trouble we thought we couldn’t survive and yet here we are, still working on keeping things together and creating our dreams too.